WAR Race:Chaos Dwarf (WAR Lore)
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History of the Chaos Dwarfs
Thousands of years ago in the time line of the Warhammer universe, a group of Dwarfs moved northwards from their ancestral home somewhere in the Southlands. They moved along the high ridge of the mountains known as the World's Edge Mountains, following the trail of mineral ores and precious gems, eventually reaching the region at the far north of the World's Edge Mountains which they called Zorn Uzkul or the Great Skull Land. This was a vast, cold, and inhospitable plateau where the air was thin and the rocks bare. From this point, some of the Dwarfs turned east and then south along the barren Mountains of Mourn.
Then came the Time of Chaos. The Dwarfs who dwelled west believed that those who had traveled east had been destroyed by the tides of Chaos that swelled in from the north, but this was not true. The strong forces of Chaos did not fatally mutate the hardy Dwarfs as it would have done for weaker species such as humans, but instead changed them in much smaller ways. The most common mutations amongst Chaos Dwarfs are large tusks and hooves instead of feet. Chaos Dwarfs also lack the natural resistance to magic that other Dwarfs possess.
They have been largely unaffected by the warping effects of Chaos, unlike humans who become readily corrupted by it. The major exceptions are the development of long, tusk-like lower canine teeth and that some became centaur-like mutants "Bull Centaurs" with the lower bodies of bulls.
The Chaos Dwarf Lands
Chaos Dwarfs occupy a region of the fictional Warhammer World that would roughly coincide with the middle east in the real world. It is to the east of the Old World, known as the Dark Lands. It is a large plain and mostly barren.
The Chaos Dwarfs have but one major city, Zharr-Naggrund. Zharr-Naggrund is situated in the middle of the Plain of Zharr, a massive crater in the Darklands full of underground workshops and mines. Much of their activity goes toward building and preserving this city. It is in the form of a massive ziggurat, with gates larger than there is any need for, which led to it being also called The Tower of Zharr-Naggrund. On the top of the city is the Temple of Hashut, where slaves are sacrificed to the god Hashut.
Chaos Dwarf Society
In the backstory to Warhammer, the Chaos Dwarfs hate their brethren for abandoning them to the wave of chaos. The Dwarfs, in turn, have completely disowned their evil kin, even going so far as to rewrite their family histories to make it seem as if they never existed. Chaos Dwarfs are unlike other Warhammer dwarfs in many ways, being enthusiastic slavers with Orc and Goblin slaves, as well as humans, under hobgoblin overseers. Many of them are potent sorcerers, using conventional magic rather than the purely runic magic of other Dwarfs. They worship a god named Hashut, also known as the "Father of Darkness", rather than the Dwarf ancestor gods. There is very little official information about Hashut, especially regarding whether he is one of the Chaos gods or some other kind of god. What is known is that he was originally a great Daemon Prince serving Khorne who rebelled. After rebelling, he was locked up within the mountains of the Chaos Dwarfs, where he would have eventually been punished by Khrone had it not been for the Elf's vortex in the Isle of the Dead. Eventually his prison was come across by the Dwarfs who released him. After this a great schism overcame them, some staying true to the old dwarven codes, many worshiping Hashut as a new god. Hashut granted the most powerful of these worshipers magical powers to use against their kin. Many dwarfs where sacrificed to him in addition to this, those with magical powers mutated into the Lahmussa or Targus battle beasts used by the Chaos Dwarfs to this day.
Unlike most of the races in the Warhammer World, Chaos Dwarfs see little need for further campaigns into distant lands to gain more land or belongings; they have all the slaves they need in the Mountains of Mourn and the Darklands, along with more material wealth than they actually need (although being Dwarfs, this is never quite enough).
There are relatively few Chaos Dwarfs, the vast numbers of slaves who toil in the Tower of Zharr-Naggrund and in the Plain of Zharrduk outnumber them many times over. All the Chaos Dwarfs belong to one of the Chaos Dwarf Sorcerers, they are his subjects and also his kinsmen, bonded by ties of blood-loyalty which all Chaos Dwarfs deem unbreakable. Bands of Chaos Dwarfs scour the Dark Lands searching for captives to bring back to Zharr-Naggrund to work in the mines and forges, or to sacrifice at the Temple of Hashut. The temple is guarded by Bull Centaurs. Chaos Dwarf Sorcerers According to White Dwarf Presents: Chaos Dwarfs, the Chaos Dwarf Sorcerers rule over the Tower of Zharr-Naggrund as the lords and masters of the Chaos Dwarfs and high priests of Hashut. They specialize in the study of machines and magic combined to produce arcane engines of power and destruction. There are only a few, probably no more than a few hundred amongst the whole Chaos Dwarf race. There is no leader nor formal hierarchy; the strongest voices are the oldest and most powerful. Each Chaos Dwarf Sorcerer controls part of the city, with its own workshops and forges, slaves and warriors, as part of his personal dominion.
The more Chaos Dwarf Sorcerers use magic the more it affects them. Although slow the process once started is inexorable. From the feet up they slowly turn to stone. Over time, the entire body turns to stone and he becomes a statue to be placed along with the others lining the roadways around the Tower of Zharr-Naggrund.
Slaves And Subject Races
The acquisition of slaves is very important to Chaos Dwarfs because they are totally dependent upon captives to keep their city and industries going. Bands of Chaos Dwarfs will travel many hundreds of miles to raid Orc or Goblin strongholds in the Mountains of Mourn, and when they conquer a tribe they take as many prisoners back to their city as they can. The more captives they take the more successful the expedition is judged to have been. All wars of conquest are fought with the aim of taking slaves; the Chaos Dwarfs are not interested in expanding their territories further, for the Mountains of Mourn and the Plain of Zharrduk contain all the wealth that they require. Sometimes whole armies of Chaos Dwarfs march against the Orc and Goblin tribes, subduing one tribe after another before returning to the Tower of Zharr-Naggrund laden with slaves.
The Chaos Dwarfs trade slaves with the Goblin tribes, choosing to use the Goblins as intermediaries rather than advance further into the Old World.
Bestiary
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